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The Velvet Café’s top list of 2011
So I made a list after all. I’ve talked about my frustrations regarding list making, but watching everyone else’s top 10 lists, I was caught by the bug too.
After some more pondering I came to the conclusion that I shouldn’t take the process of list making so serious. It’s just a piece of fun that gives me a reason to mention my favorite movies from the past year yet another time. And it also tells something about me. It’s as if I’m letting you into myliving room, checking out my bookshelves.
About the list
This list is made from a Swedish perspective, following the Swedish release schedule. It consists of movies that I’ve seen in a theatre or watched on a DVD, which all were released during 2011.
This means that there are quite a few movies on the list that others will consider 2010 movies. And I haven’t yet had the opportunity to watch movies that other consider essentials of 2011, such as The Artist, Hugo, 50/50, Take Shelter or We Need to Talk about Kevin.
As I made this list I was baffled at the amount of wonderful movies I’ve seen this year. It was ridiculously hard to decide which ones to put in the top 10. Eventually I cheated and made them eleven, excusing myself with that my Idol Mark Kermode did the very same thing.
But I didn’t settle for just those eleven. I’ve also listed about fifty other movies from this year, and I’d dare say every single one of those are well worth watching. The movies that didn’t make it into the top eleven have been sorted into three groups, but not ranked within the groups. And mind you, even if they’re further down, they’re really good. I could easily have made another couple of top 10s.
I would lie if I said that it was easy to rank the movies. I’ve kept switching them around, over and and over again, and I’m even switching it as I’m finalizing this post, to the very end. But at some point you need to say stop and just go for it. Even I probably will have changed my mind once again tomorrow.
But we’ve talked enough. Let’s go and have a look at The Velvet Café’s top list of movies from 2011!
1. Never Let Me Go
This dystopian science fiction drama, bittersweet with the emphasis on bitter, put up some good questions about what it means to be a human being. I watched it in the beginning of the year, but the final image – an empty field, a piece of plastic stuck at a barbed wire blowing in the wind – has stayed in my memory over the year and will stay with me forever. It was a perfect ending of a thoroughly saddening movie that reminded us of how fragile and volatile a life is.
2. The Skin I Live In
A quote from my review:
“The last few days I’ve been walking around with an inward, content smile, the kind of smile you will see from someone who just has finished a gourmet dinner or had an amazing sexual experience. It’s not that the film is uplifting, because frankly, it isn’t. But it has everything I possible could want. It’s pretty, elegant, intriguing, gripping, challenging and entertaining at the same time.”
3. Incendies
“As I made my way home in the dark night, I urged for company, laughter, light and a single malt whisky – anything to reset my faith in humanity before I would even consider trying to go to sleep.
And yet, while it made me feel awful, this was one of the best movies I’ve seen this year.
It sounds weird when I think of it. Why does misery attract me? Why don’t I just stick to the fun ones? And I can’t tell for sure. Maybe it’s got to do with the fact that the shadows and the darkness in life won’t disappear just because you pretend it’s not there. You need to throw a glance at them once in a while, give them some attention, or they’ll just keep growing until they’re out of control. Like raging fires.”
4. Beginners
Based on a true story it’s a movie about a son whose father comes out as gay at the age of 75 after the death of his mother. I will remember it as the movie of 2011 that made me cry most, but thanks to its humor I also find myself smiling through my veil of tears.
5. Melancholia
I can’t remember last time I was so taken by an ending as after watching Melancholia. This was a bit remarkable considering that we got spoilers in the very introduction and knew perfectly well exactly how it would end. And yet there was something in those images that captured me on an emotional level. For being a movie about depression it was strangely upliftning. And Kirsten Dunst did a remarkable performance in the leading role.
6. Animal Kingdom
This Australian crime drama had some amazing acting performances. Strangely enough it never made it into a theatre in Sweden outside of the festival scene.
7. Winter’s Bone
There were a lot of superlatives on the cover. But it wasn’t a hype. This movie deserved every piece of praise that it got.
8. Black Swan
Dark, powerful and very, very visual. It’s almost a year since I watched it but it stays strong in my memory. One of my daughters watched it four times and then she asked me to bring her to see The Swan Lake live. I can’t blame her for being fascinated.
9. Drive
It was so violent that I wanted to hide behind my seat, but at the same time it was so well crafted and stylish that I can’t but admire it.
10. Dogtooth
Creepy and fascinating about a family living in complete isolation from the world, resembling to nothing I’ve seen before.
10. The King’s Speech
OK, I admit it, I’m an anglophile at heart and Colin Firth is one of my favourite actors. I’ve heard very little love for this one in the blogosphere. I attribute this to that people were sulking over that The Social Network didn’t get the Oscar for best movie. Regardless of this, I’m a fan.
12-21 in alphabetical order
127 hours
Can you really make a movie about someone who is stuck under a rock and make it work? Yep you totally can.
Another Year
As always there’s an almost documentary feeling in this Mike Leigh movie, which must be one of his more optimistic. It felt oddly refreshing to for once see an older couple in a relationship that actually worked fine after many years of marriage.
Hanna – with a fast and furious pace, a wonderful heroine and one of the best soundtracks of the year.
Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows (1+) 2
I was fortunate enough to watch the final HP movie one after each other the same evening, which is how I think they should be watched. I can imagine the frustration of someone watching just part 1 the previous year, ending up seeing nothing but a long build-up. In any case, while the HP movies haven’t always been brilliant, I think they made a worthy ending to the series. Even though they could have cut out the final scene and spare us some giggles.
Of Gods and Men – based on true events, about a group of French monks who died in Algeria in 1996 when they refused to evacuate their monastery when their life was put at danger. Very moving with great acting performances.
Oslo, August 31st – A Norwegian blues. Louis Malle has made this before but sometimes remakes can be justified.
Shame – Michael Fassbender makes an unforgettable portray of a sex addict.
This is Not a Film
I watched this as a political act but was happily surprised at how good it actually was.
The Tree of Life – More of poetry than a movie, but some of the poems were fantastic. I might make more of it if I watch it a second time.
True Grit – I’m usually not a western fan, but I enjoyed this one.
22-40, alphabetical order
3 – Tom Tykwer’s unconventional love story about a ménage a trois
A Separation – has made it into many top 10 lists of this year. For me it was an eye-opener about the situation in Iran and the difficulties that secularized intellectual face, giving them no option but to leave, separating from their country.
Blue Valentine – about two people falling out of love. A little slow but with a very good acting performance by Ryan Gosling, who has had an amazing year by the way, appearing in many of the movies on my top list.
Contagion – perhaps more scientifically correct than a cinematically perfect
Headhunters – a well crafted thriller from Norway
The Ides of March – while it probably doesn’t beat West Wing, it had an ambiguous ending that I liked.
The Illusionist – my favorite animated movie of this year.
Le Havre – Kaurismäki brought us a sweet fairytale.
Midnight in Paris – sweet and lightweight. Not one of Allen’s best movies, but still enjoyable if you’re a fan like me.
Moneyball – I watched this only recently and haven’t written a review yet. But baseball noob as I am, I enjoyed it a lot.
Rabbit Hole – John Cameron Mitchell’s portray of a couple mourning their child was very gripping.
Rise of the Planet of the Apes – gave us my favorite line of the year: “NO”. And yet another impressive motion capture act by Andy Serkis.
Source Code – because I love this type of science fiction stories. Not as good as Duncan Jones previous film Moon, but still a good effort.
Submarine – too much indie quirk, according to some. But not according to me. I thought it was funny and charming. One of the very few movies this year that made me laugh.
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy – like a puzzle with half of the pieces missing. But very stylish and well made.
Trollhunter – a found footage film from Norway that totally won me over
Turn Me On, Dammit – A Sweet and joyful Norwegian take on young sexuality
Honourable mentions
At Night I Fly – a Swedish documentary about an art program in an American prison that noone else has seen. I hope it gets more attention.
Attenberg – An odd little movie from Greece. My strongest impression was the weird dances made by two girls who imitated what they’d seen on Sir David Attenborough programs.
Bridesmaids – contained a spectacular poo scene. But I don’t think it brought anything new to the view on women, despite the marketing. Funny at times though and gave me some laughs.
Certified Copy – a darling among the critics that didn’t quite convince me when I watched it. I find it hard to digest all the lecturing about art philosophy and the values of copies and originals. However after having it explained to me, I could very well appreciate it better at a second viewing.
Crazy Stupid Love – the movie that made us realize that Gosling looks photoshopped.
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo – well crafted, but I hope Fincher will move over to make something else now
The Hedgehog – a French, quite sweet little story about a suicidal 11 year old and a grumpy janitor of her house.
Jane Eyre – Wonderful costumes, wonderful setting and cinematography, although this novel might not be ideal to make movies on. A lot needed to be sacrificed.
Limitless – as entertaining as it was forgettable. I think it got more crap than it deserved.
Norwegian Wood– while feeling a little empty, there were some beautiful shots from the Japanese countryside
Super 8 – The kids were wonderful, but we had to take the monster as well with the bargain, which pulled it down. Very entertaining as long as it lasted though.
Enjoying a ride isn’t the same as endorsing it
The moment when Jordan Belfort grabbed the dwarf to throw him at a target board I knew where I had him.
People who take pleasure in dwarf tossing you get no love from me. Not that Jordan Belfort needed it. Right from the start it was clear that he was so full of his love for money, drugs and himself, that there wasn’t room for anything else.
I thought I knew what I was in for as I went out on the three hour long ride that is The Wolf of Wall Street. I knew that I would travel in company with a man who was ruthless, boundless and careless – a psychopath, who I wouldn’t want to come near if I met him in real life. Judging from the trailer it looked as if it might get a bit crazy on the way.
But I don’t think I was prepared for how hedonistic the film would be. I knew it would be explicit, but not that it would more or less 180 minutes of sex and drug orgies.
180 minutes of orgies
People have group sex at the office with prostitutes. They’re both snorting cocaine and blowing it into each other’s unmentionable body parts and they’re masturbating publicly. They’re on a constant high, each one of them a chemical plant on legs. I didn’t count, but someone else did, and found 569 uses of the f-word in this film, which makes three times a minute. And it would be more if it wasn’t for all those scenes where they’re too stoned to speak a word.
The mass scenes in the office spays are spectacular, reminding me of the visual joy of The Great Gatsby, although Gatsby’s parties appear small and tidy in comparison.
Of course I enjoyed watching this! The three hours were over before I knew it, not the least because it’s so darkly funny most of the time. There’s especially one scene that will be a competitor for the title “most memorable scene of the year”. It’s when diCaprio gets to show his talent for physical comedy, which I wasn’t aware of that he had. He’s on the level of Rowan Atkinson in body language and control as he – I don’t know how to describe this – is floating down a stair, like a piece of slime, since he’s too high on drugs to even crawl properly. I just couldn’t stop laughing.
Glorifying Belfort?
The question is if the fact that the movie is so entertaining somehow puts Jordan Belfort, who is a real person, in better light. Is he glorified by this film? Some critics have suggested this, but I disagree. Just because you enjoy a ride, it doesn’t mean that you endorse it.
It’s true that The Wolf of Wall Street doesn’t spend a lot of time with those who have paid the price for the orgies in the office at Wall Street – their families and their customers – people with ordinary jobs who lost their savings because they were lied to, cheated and manipulated by Belfort and his colleagues. But the audience isn’t more stupid than that they realize this. We can figure out that there are for every win they make, there’s a victim. We don’t have any doubt about that Belfort is a bad person. Bad as in “bad bad”. He’s not a bad guy with a good heart, who will learn and get better. He’s just someone who has done terrible things and who wouldn’t hesitate to keep doing them if he could gain from it. Without giving away what happens in the end, I’d say that I interpret it as a dark, cynical and satire comment on the state of the world.
I too get sick though thinking about the fact that Belfort actually appears in this film in a cameo and that he will money on it, since it’s based on his book, which he already gets a lot of money from, while, from what I’ve heard in media, his victims still haven’t gotten their money back. But in the end, it would be wrong to let this knowledge affect how I judge The Wolf of Wall Street as a movie.
I had a blast and I would recommend others to see it. Just don’t bring your parents or children with you. This is one you want to see on your own.
The Wolf of Wall Street (Martin Scorsese, US 2013) My rating: 4,5/5
I watched The Wolf of Wall Street alongside with the Swedish bloggers in Filmspanarna. Here are links to the posts by my fellow bloggers:
In English
In Swedish
Except Fear
Filmparadiset
Fiffis filmtajm
Fripps filmrevyer
Har du inte sett den
Jojjenito
Movies-Noir
Rörliga bilder och tryckta ord
10 things I’ll remember from 2011
Are you done talking about 2011?
I’m not. Not quite yet. In this post I’ve listed ten recollections from 2011, things to remember this year for.
1. The anticlimax of Bridesmaids
I caught up the buzz long before Bridesmaids opened. This was supposed to be the milestone in the history of women and movies. Never before had a movie featured so many female comedians at the same time, giving the male characters secondary roles. The screenwriters were women too, which was supposed to grant us something entirely different from anything else we’d seen. The biggest morning paper in Sweden did a huge feature article with a number of interviews. We were making history!
What we got in the end was a decent comedy, but nothing more. Once again we saw women who were obsessing over weddings, what to wear and how to meet Prince Charming. Women making cupcakes. Melissa McCarthy was pretty funny though and there was a poo scene that I won’t forget anytime soon. But it was an anticlimax, that’s for sure.
As a women I was far more inspired by Hanna than by Bridesmaids, that’s for sure.
2. The excellency of Michael Fassbender in Shame
Who deserves the title “actor of the year” for 2011? Among female actors, my vote goes to Carey Mulligan, appearing in three of my favorite movies – Never Let Me Go, Drive and Shame and excellent in each one of them.
For the male actors there’s a dead race between Ryan Gosling and Michael Fassbender. On average I think Gosling did a better choice of movies (Blue Valentine, The Ides of March, Crazy, Stupid Love and Drive as compared to A Dangerous Method, X-Men: First Class, Jane Eyre and Shame).
Some performances stood out to me. Among the women I think of Natalie Portman in Black Swan, Elena Anaya in The Skin I Live In and Kirstin Dunst in Melancholia, who oozed depression from every cell in her body and managed to look more sick than sexy as we watched her naked in a bathtub scene. (Such a shame that the Lars von Trier stole her thunder at the infamous press conference inCannes.) Among the men Christoffer Plummer in Beginners comes to mind, as well as the said Gosling in Drive.
But my number one acting performance this year was Michael Fassbender’s portray of the sex addict Brandon in Shame. I don’t know how he does it, but without saying a word he can tell the story of his life through a look or muscle twitch. He didn’t just expose a naked body; he exposed a naked soul through his eyes. It was amazing to watch.
3. The Norwegian success
The Swedish film industry has tried to launch the expression “The Swedish film wonder”. This is a bit of a joke considering the quality of most of the Swedish movies I’ve seen this year.
I’m a little bit reluctant to say what I’m going to say now, since there as you might know is a friendly competition between Sweden and Norway, like you have with your sister or brother.
But to tell the truth – Norway is on a roll. I watched four Norwegian movies during 2011: Oslo, August 31st, Trollhunter, Turn me on, dammit! and Headhunters. They were all excellent and ended up on my extended top list of films from 2011.
I can’t but pout a little bit, envious of their success. They were already better skiers, had more beautiful mountains and the oil to make them wealthy eternally. And now they’re better film makers as well. Maybe it’s time to brush up the old idea of making a union?
4. The girl who knocked out her own tooth over the sink
Which film scene was the most troubling of 2011? With all the dark movies I watch there were quite a few to choose between. I hate rape scenes in movies and the ones in Incendies and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo made me very uncomfortable. The scene where they took away the scalp in Contagion was quite disturbing, as was the arm amputation in 127 hours and the swamp scene in Winter’s Bone. And who can forget the ultra violence in Drive? Now I know what it sounds like when someone is jumping on the head of someone else until it cracks. It’s not a sound I’d like to hear again.
But the scene in Dogtooth with the self inflicted damage in the bathroom was the one that troubled me most. It was unbearable to watch and her strange, bloody, toothless smile made it even worse. I’ll never forget it.
5. The unsolved mystery that was The Tree of Life
Some movies are like straightforward novels, driven by plots that engage you and characters you care about and a way of storytelling that you feel at home with. Other are like poetry – fragmented, impressionistic, conveying moods states of mind, open for interpretation of the viewer. The Tree of Life is definitely a poem movie.
I admired it and I enjoyed parts of it a lot, the cosmic parts where we watched the birth of the universe accompanied by gorgeous classical music and whispering voices. I even enjoyed the so-hated-on dinosaur scene, which is supposed to have made people leave the theatres in wrath, demanding a refund for their tickets. But I couldn’t embrace the extended periods of scattered reminiscences from a childhood, Sean Penn looking pensive and a number of people walking around on a shore for an unknown reason. I respect it more than I love it, putting the blame of my lack of understanding on myself.
I’ve read dozens of thoughtful posts where people have analyzed The Tree of Life from various metaphysical perspectives, but for all their weight, for all the knowledge and enthusiasm they contained, they couldn’t help me to penetrate the mystery that was The Tree of Life.
6. The Tintin disappointment
I know I’m in a minority, but The Adventures of Tintin was the biggest letdown of 2011 to me. I think my dislike to great extent comes from that I grew up as a Tintin fan (I still am and I revisit my favorite albums once in a while.)
On an intellectual level I share the view that you shouldn’t compare a movie adaptation to the original work but judge it on its own merits. But in reality I can’t completely disregard of my feelings. I had thought I would feel familiar watching Tintin, but instead I felt lost. The heart and soul of the comic was gone, Haddock acted weirdly and the landscapes weren’t anywhere near as pretty or fascinating as in the comic books. For all the motion caption and 3D and advanced computer technology, the characters looked like plastic dolls, a little creepy and far less alive than if they had been drawn the traditional way.
The action scenes were drawn out, sometimes spectacular but strangely disengaging. For how weird it sounds, I got really, really bored. And that was the last thing I had expected from a franchise I love, staged by two directors who previously have made some of my favorite movies.
7. The farewell to Harry Potter
The launch of the final movie in the series marked the end of an era and the 20-something’s cried floods because they were taking farewell of their youth. It was an Andy-says-goodbye-to-his-toys moment.
I’m admittedly too old to claim that I grew up with Harry Potter, but I’ve followed the books as well as the films over the years, in company with my kids as well as for my own enjoyment. It’s one of those franchises that I don’t think of as a franchise but as a dear friend.
Not all movies in the series have been brilliant, but I think the final part was one of the best and gave it a worthy end. (I decide to forget about the very last extra scene at the railway station, which made the entire theatre burst out in laughter.)
8. The discovery of the world of short films
I attended the annual international short film festival in my city for the first time, watched sixty short films in a week and fell completely in love with it. Not every film was brilliant, so what when the next one is just a few minutes away? The box of chocolate from Forest Gump is a worn out image, but it’s really valid in the case of this festival. Every set of films contained at least one or two delicious pieces, my favorite one being Skallamann (Baldguy) from Norway (again!), a mini musical with a coming-out theme and a cheerful song that will stuck forever.
9. The Swedish encounter with Hollywood
While generally skeptic to remakes, especially one as soon and uncalled for one as The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, I must say that I’ve enjoyed the time we’ve spent with it the last couple of years in Sweden enormously. Never before has a Hollywood production of this size been made inSweden. It gave job opportunities to film workers, and it gave everyone else something to talk about. They placed held the press conference for international media in Stockholm, flying in all the stars from Hollywood one last time.
At the launch before Christmas the Swedish newspaper Dagens nyheter made interviews with a number of people who in one way or another had been involved in the recordings. This quote from a site manager for one of the shooting places reflects a bit of our big-eyed fascination.
“When Swedes make films, we say that “if we are shooting in the direction we need to avoid including that modern lamppost or the ugly house”. The Americans think the opposite: “We must be able to shoot in 180 degrees, fix it!” So we had to remove forty lampposts and repaint the houses. Two hectares of land around Segersta were sealed off, school buses diverted and the church was temporarily closed. The committee was also to build a general store – in full scale, around100 square feet. The house is still standing. There was no room to question it, we just had to seek planning permission and go for it. Working for the world director David Fincher was a bit like going to war – if you sign you have to make it work, there’s no room walk around moaning over stuff. Everything was so much bigger and with much higher standards. Terribly challenging, but above all great fun.”
I wrote previously that I wanted Fincher to do something better with his talent than wasting it on follow-ups of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. But on the other hand, I secretly hope that they will make them. They gave us quite some show, didn’t they? It feels a bit empty now that it’s over.
10. The closing shot of Melancholia
It seems suitable to end my list of memories from 2011 with the most memorable movie ending of the year. There were a number of candidates: Never Let me Go, Dogtooth, The Skin I live in, Black Swan, The Ides of March, Of Gods and Men and Oslo August 31st to mention a few. But the undisputedly strongest image of the year, the one that I still can recall as if I just had walked out of the theatre, was the final shot of Melancholia. We knew what was coming, it had been established from the very beginning of the movie, and yet – when it happened it was quite a bit of a shock. I could have sworn they’d suddenly transformed my ordinary little theatre to an IMAX one with 4d effects. The entire place was trembling. And so was I.
And that was about it. I guess I’m ready to let go of 2011. Now bring me on 2012!
Cheers!
Haddock’s inspirational speech was the breaking straw
1. I’ve been a Tintin fan for as long as I can remember. The albums were a part of my upbringing. Basically I know them by heart. I have no idea of how many times I’ve read them, but it’s probably closer to 100 than 10.
2. I like Steven Spielberg. A lot. Jaws, E.T, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Jurassic Park, Schindler’s list, Minority Report. There are so many proofs that Spielberg generally kicks ass. He knows his craft.
3. I loved what Peter Jackson did with the ring trilogy. Sacrifices needed to be made and Tom Bombadill had to go, but considering how difficult it must have been, I think the result was amazing. For the record I only had three major complaints in the entire series: 1. Making Gimli into a laughable character and a target for dwarf tossing, 2. Legolas doing stupid skateboard/surfing moves in the fight and 3. Legolas doing some pretty silly swinging as he fought the olifants. That’s not a lot to be honest.
Following this I obviously had huge expectations for The Adventures of Tintin.
A beautiful line-up
Tintin + Spielberg + Jackson + modern, awesome animation technology starring the motion capture actor Andy Serkis who did such a great job as Gollum and in Rise of the Planet of the Apes – what could possibly go wrong with such a line-up?
It didn’t even bother me much that Fiffi didn’t like it. If you don’t know about Fiffi, she’s a Swedish film blogger, about my own age, just a way better writer than I am. It’s just a pity for the international film blogging community that she writes in Swedish, and in a way that is far too clever for Google translation to capture. However, for all my admiration for her, we often have slightly different opinions about movies. She was crazy in love with Crazy, Stupid, Love. I wasn’t. I on the other hand fell for Submarine. She didn’t.
In the case of Tintin, she wrote (in my own clumsy translation) something along those lines:
“This first of Tintin’s adventures seen through the eyes of Steven Spielberg is something as weird as sparkling fireworks where you’ve only used pastel colours. It’s like making flambéed bananas but forgetting to light the liquid, like paying 3 000 bucks for a wedding make-up but not get water safe mascara, like sitting in a theatre saloon and see this high-tech miracle of comic adaptation and yet fall asleep. Yes, I did it. I fell asleep. Damn it, how I slept and I can’t blame the incredibly comfortable armchairs at the cinema in Sickla, no, it was the movie that was to blame, nothing else”.
I giggled a little but then I dismissed it, saying to myself: “Hey, Fiffi’s grumpy today. Almost everyone else has liked it. And falling asleep! Pfft! How could that even be possible? She must have had a really bad day. But I won’t! I’m going to the theatre with an open mind, not clinging to the albums stricken by nostalgia, and I’m totally going to love this!”
But – and I think you already know where this is heading – I was sadly disappointed to see that I should have listened to Fiffi. For once we agreed completely about a movie. Not that it would have prevented me from watching it anyway; I needed to see this with my own eyes. But like her I won’t rush my feet off to see the follow-ups that will come.
Technically I suppose it’s well made. There are some scenes that look quite spectacular, such as the fighting between too ships at the sea and some beautiful transmissions from one scene to the other that made my jaw drop. But I could never rid myself of the thought that the characters are like those little collector’s models you can buy in Toy Stores for grown-ups at ridiculous prices. There was something plastic and completely dead about them.
And what is worse: they didn’t feel like themselves and that’s my biggest issue with the movie.
My complaints
However, let’s talk about my other complaints about Tintin first.
Above everything else, it’s messy. I can’t fathom what drove them to mix up the stories from several albums in the way they did. It doesn’t really add anything, it’s just confusing and distracting.
I kept waiting and waiting for the sea adventure to take off and for the professor to enter the story. He never did. Instead they went on a strange tour to the desert, where all of a sudden Castafiore turned up. It was as if they had taken a bunch of albums, cut them into pieces and randomly put them together and it felt ridiculous and wrong.
Sure, there’s a lot of action going on, not a quiet second. But action doesn’t equal tension and suspense. As a matter of fact – and to my astonishment – I found myself bored. Yes, you read it right: bored. It was the last reaction I would have expected from a Spielberg movie. Here they were fighting with the villains, being chased or chasing themselves all over the world to put the puzzle pieces together, and I kept looking at my watch, wondering if it still was working since the pointers seemed not to move forward as they should. I didn’t fall asleep like Fiffi, but I can’t deny that I was tempted, especially as I watched it inAmsterdam, where they have proper theatres unlike the pit hole we have in my home town.
What was worst though was, as I said earlier, that the characters felt so alien. The word “imposer” came to my mind. It was as if someone had taken a polyjuice elixir, dressing up like Tintin and Haddock, pretending to be them, but failing badly in the way they acted.
Inspriational speech
The breaking point was when Captain Haddock out of the blue feels compelled to hold an inspirational speech to Tintin. Since I’m a sucker for rhetoric, I usually don’t mind that little outburst right before the final fight scene is about to take off, which seems mandatory in American movies. But Haddock telling Tintin not to give up? That’s just wrong. So wrong.
I hate to write negative reviews and I wish I could disagree with Fiffi on this one. But I have to be honest: I didn’t like this at all. It’s possible though that I’ have too much Tintin album love flowing in my veins to be able to judge this in a fair and balanced way.
If you disagree with me, I’m really happy for you. But for my own part I’ll stick to the albums for the future.
The Adventures of Tintin (Steven Spielberg, 2011) My rating: 2,5/5
Ryan Gosling vs Ryan Gosling
Ryan Gosling seems to be everywhere these days. Not that I mind. He’s not only good looking; he’s got that area of melancholy around him that reminds me a little bit of a very young Mickey Rourke. So irresistible.
I watched two movies in a row this weekend starring him, both picturing a marriage falling apart, with completely different approaches to the topic. Ryan Gosling was the only thing they had in common. The question is: Which one won this duel? Let’s find out!
Movie 1
First out was Blue Valentine. I hesitate to admit this, because you might take it the wrong way, but I actually fell asleep watching it. Please don’t jump into the conclusion that it’s a bad movie, because it isn’t. I was quite devastated realizing what had happened, and as soon as I woke up I re-watched everything I had missed and a little bit more to be on the safe side. However, the pace IS admittedly slow and it might not be the best pick for burying yourself into a sofa for some Friday night relaxation.
If you manage to stay awake, Blue Valentine gives very realistic portray of two people who fell in love once upon a time, but who apparently have slipped away from each other over the years and now it doesn’t work any longer. In a final desperate act to save their marriage, Gosling’s character books a hotel night for them, but the question is if it will be enough for them to rediscover what was lost. This story is told in a non-chronological manner, jumping back and forward in time, alternately showing scenes from the miserable present and events from the happier days when they first met.
So what about Gosling’s performance? Is he more than eye-candy for the ladies? Oh yes, definitely. Actually I find him quite unattractive in his older incarnation, not being a fan of moustaches and whiskers. We get to see him as a young, charming and imaginative guy, who transforms into someone who appears to be a bit of a “loser”, but at the same time is a great and loving father. He’s believable, and so is Michelle Williams playing his wife, who gets increasingly impatient at his lack of ambitions. It doesn’t feel as if the movie takes sides for either of them. They’re human. They’ve got assets and flaws, like all of us. It’s just that they don’t work very well together as a couple, not in the long run.
As I watched her complaining over him in one of the later scenes, the same words Kirsten Dunst told her husband in Melancholia came to my mind. She’s suffering from depression and has just ruined their wedding party. “But what did you expect?”
Everything that has gone wrong was present in the beginning of their relationship. But when wrapped up in the process of falling in love, they were unable to see it.
Talking about Blue Valentine I also have to mention Faith Wladyka, playing their daughter. Where do they find those brilliant child actors? The scenes where she appears and the interaction between her and Gosling is so natural that it’s more like a documentary than a scripted movie. Did she even realize she was acting in the movie? You wouldn’t think so.
All in all I liked Blue Valentine well enough, even though I wouldn’t put it at the same level as for instance The Squid and the Whale or Scenes from a marriage. I may be a little bit old fashioned, but I like when people talk in movies. You know, like having conversations. Not just looking at each other.
Movie 2
My second divorce movie with Ryan Gosling was Crazy, Stupid, Love.
If Blue Valentine lacked humor, this one had too much of it for my taste. Or rather: a little bit too much of the standard gags you find in box office successes. I suppose I’m a bore, but I don’t find it particularly hilarious to see people getting into a physical fight over a misunderstanding until the police arrives making them look like little boys, just to give one example.
That kind of scenes bring this movie to a lower level than it had needed to be on considering the topic, a marriage breaking up after 25 years and the middle aged man and woman being a t a bit of a loss how to proceed with their lives.
I would had hoped for a little bit more, especially since it’s written and directed by the same ones who did I love you Philip Morris, which I liked quite a bit, especially for being so unpredictable. Well, I tell you: this isn’t.
Sure, we get to admire Ryan Gosling’s six pack and there are a few scenes I figure could be considered equivoque, but on the whole it tastes too much like a family friendly Disney movie. Safe for grandmothers and anyone older than 13 years old, supporting traditional values and utterly, utterly predictable. Not even a bit provocative.
It’s not that I insist on that all good movies need to have an unhappy or ambiguous ending. Throw a glance at my “My life in movies” posts and you’ll see a lot of positivity in it. But generally – if you add a lot of sugar, you need to balance it out with salt, bitterness or at least some originality. In this case they didn’t get the balance right.
Steve Carell even says it aloud halfway through the movie: “What a cliché!”. This was probably meant to be funny in some meta, self-referring way, but thought to myself: “Sadly enough I agree with you.”
On the other hand, once again twisting the words of Kirsten Dunst. It’s a rom-com. What did I expect?
So what about Ryan Gosling? Actually he didn’t disappoint me the way the movie did. And I’m not just thinking about his belly (photoshopped or not). I liked his take on his slick character, which could have passed as a disciple of Barney Stinson’s. Apparently he’s capable of playing other roles than that silent, depressed guy, who speaks mostly through his eyes.
The verdict
It’s time for a verdict. Out of the two movies I liked Blue Valentine best. That goes without a saying.
But if the competition stands between the two versions of Ryan Gosling, I’d rather date the one from Crazy, Stupid, Love. Who wouldn’t?
Blue Valentine (Derek Cianfrance, US, 2010) My rating: 4/5
Crazy, Stupid, Love (Glenn Ficarra & John Requa, US, 2011) My rating: 3/5
How to share movies with your children
Have we got an obligation as movie lovers to make sure that our kids watch certain films as a part of their education?
Are our reasons for using our parental privilege, more or less forcing them to watch our old favourites pure, innocent and altogether altruistic?
Or could there something else at play here – an urge to try to make our children into copies of ourselves or a longing for the power to not only recommend movies to others, but also have them actually watch it?
I came to think of this after listening to the extra material of a recent episode of Filmspotting, where the hosts had a discussion about suitable “father-daughter movies”, movies that they’d like to share with their present or future daughters.
Gender differences?
At first I got a bit worked up as I listened to their take. They started out suggesting some old Audrey Hepburn movies to be particularly suitable for this purpose? And I wanted to cry out: why? Would you suggest the same movies to your sons, or would you rather pick a Sylvester Stallone movie for them? It sounded like a view on genders that was outdated already in the 60s and I raged, oh, I raged.
I thought of the move preferences of my own girls. The 18 year old, with her love for action and thrillers and her contempt for anything that breathes of drama, emotions, feel-good or God-forbid – romance. There’s no way I could convince her to come with me to see a movie like Rabbit Hole. She even refused The King’s Speech, to my big dismay. I did persuade her to come and see Dogtooth with me, but Source Code will probably be more to her liking. Typical girlish is the last thing she is.
And then there’s the 17 year old She DOES like some movies that teenage girls are “expected” to like. The Twilight series and that sort of thing. But she also is a huge fan of horror movies, the more blood and gore, the better. The kind of movies I just can’t bear the thought of watching. I remember when she came home and told me about her watching of The Human Centipede. I felt sick for days after it, only from her retelling the plot. But she’s way tougher than I am.
Thinking about all this, I was about to explode at what I thought was a very old-fashioned view on boys and girls. But then all of a sudden, the hosts changed their mind and said that they couldn’t see any difference and that there was no reason to assume that their daughters wouldn’t enjoy movies such as Life of Brian and The Godfather as much as a son would do.
And since this is exactly my point of view, I could finally stop fuming and raging.
Influence our children
But let’s ponder a bit further of the idea of giving your children a movie education. Does it always work out the way we hope? Can we have any kind of influence on their future preferences, or at least help them with some pointers, give the discoveries they might have missed out otherwise?
Perhaps. But my advice for aspiring parents, who plan to raise their future offspring in a spirit of cinephilia, is to have reasonable, realistic expectations. Believe it or not, but for the genetic connection there is, children sometimes come out very, very different from their parents. They deserve to be listened to and accepted for who they are. And movies age, not always with grace. The movie that you still think is excellent, thanks to a shimmer of nostalgia that is invisible to anyone who didn’t see it when it first was released, may in fact be pretty awful, slow and unbearably tedious for someone who is brought up with a completely different pace in their daily media consumption.
Have mercy with the little ones or you might put them off from watching movies altogether! It’s more important that they maintain their lust and curiosity about movies, having an open mind for movies of all sorts, connecting the act of going to a cinema to something positive, than to ensure that they’ve seen all the “must-see” classics.
I was raised in a family of book readers, where the general idea was that it didn’t matter WHAT you read, as long as you read something. There was a place and a reason for all sorts of books. This open attitude was a soil where a genuine interest for literature could flourish. One day I read a light crime novel. The next day I dove into a Russian classic. And neither was ever considered “wrong”. I’d suggest that attitude when it comes to movies as well. Of course you can share recommendations – the enthusiasm my parents showed for Whisky Galore! was contageous. But thread carefully if you want to avoid backlashes.
Movie dictating
Nowadays our children are so old, that it’s rare that we get together as a family to see the same movie. But couple of years back we did it regularly.
As the kids grew older we found ourselves spending more and more time arguing about which movie to see next. There were often four different ideas and we never seemed to agree, spending more time arguing and sulking than actually watching the movie. This was until we came up with a solution, which meant that we took turns in the decision making.
One family member at a time was the movie dictator of the night, and the rule was that everyone had to agree to that choice, giving the movie a fair chance. No commenting, sulking, arguing was allowed. However, you only had to stay around for 30 minutes. After that time slot, you were free to leave, if you didn’t like the movie.
It worked as a charm. I think it was within the frames of this system that we introduced them to for instance Woddy Allen’s Match Point, which turned out to be a favourite they even wanted to see again, sharing it with their friends. Oh, the sweet taste of parental victory!
And you know what? In the end it wasn’t just the children who got some movie education thanks to the influence from their wise parents. We too got exposed to some movies we might not else have watched, thanks to our children.
Parent-child movie education goes both ways. It’s easy to forget.
A final word
But hey, Friday night is approaching quickly and I suppose you have plans of your own. You’re probably in a hurry and want to move on rather than listening to my ramblings. If you wonder what I’m up to, I’ll probably sneak out tonight to watch the Canadian movie Incendies, which looks eventful enough to keep me awake, even if it’s more serious than commercial so to say. That’s the plan at least.
If you want to stay for a while longer though, don’t be shy to order a cup of coffee or some stronger drink of your preference. It’s on the house. And yes, we have finally installed a fireplace, so take a seat in front of it if you feel frozen.
I hope you’ll have a wonderful weekend.
Cheers!
The Velvet Café 